"There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. . . .
On such a full sea are we now afloat."
Brutus, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
It isn't high tide for Liz Cheney. Not yet.
 |
| From Fox News this morning |
Even Fox News sees it and says it. The tide is changing.
Liz Cheney lost yesterday. People looking for a post-Trump GOP must wait. Had Cheney won, the Trump spell would have broken. Republican officeholders and presidential aspirates would see that Republican voters were no longer believing the unbelievable and defending the indefensible. It would have meant that the conspiracy and outrage wing of the party--Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Green--would be a minority faction within the GOP.
It didn't happen. It is still Trump's party. No political equilibrium persists for long.
Reagan-style Republicanism lasted about 30 years, from 1980 to 2010. By 2010 the Tea Party movement had substantially changed the GOP, even as, on the surface, everything was the same. Sarah Palin's know-nothing hockey-mom populism had combined with Newt Gingrich's scorched-earth language of Democrats as disgusting traitors. The result was a new party--an ethno-nationalist party in the style of Pat Buchanan. Mitt Romney was history even before his defeat in 2012. Trump understood and gave voice to this new GOP synthesis of frustration over job losses to China, rapid immigration from Latin America and Asia, and apparent Democratic progressive wins on social issues. He sounded angry and he didn't care if what he said was exactly true. It was true in spirit. Close enough.
Economic elites--the professional class, the Wall Street Journal readers, big-money donors, the Chamber of Commerce and country club Republicans--are going along with the new, angry populist GOP. It is an uneasy fit. They understand the anti-Semitism embedded in comments about George Soros. The traditional GOP elites don't care about homosexuality, gender transition, abortion, or guns. They like immigration. Still, the GOP's business wing wants low taxes, and they get that from the GOP.
Trump put together this coalition of the GOP by force of personality and the smart decision to turn the judiciary over to the Federalist Society. Christian nationalist voters wanted anti-abortion judges. Chamber of Commerce Republicans wanted anti-regulation judges. They each got what they wanted.
The GOP coalition under Trump is fragile. Trump is a minority taste. The important thing in the Wyoming primary is not that Cheney lost. It is that she got 30% of the vote. The Trump GOP is already a loser in a national election in battleground states, and Republican voters are peeling off. Enough people recognize that Trump is a crook. Election defeats change political parties. They adjust.
Liz Cheney represents a new synthesis for the GOP. She remains a national security hawk. The Ukraine issue makes that a popular one within the GOP, putting her at odds with Trump. She changed her anti-homosexual position, and is now a civil-libertarian conservative. That position is in tune with the Kansas vote. She reconnects the GOP with law enforcement, the natural home for GOP voters.
Political coalitions do not happen because policies "make sense." They happen because political leaders create them by interpreting and anticipating events. Liz Cheney looks and sounds like a leader. She projects the presumed masculine virtues of strength, courage, and integrity. She is willing to take a beating and not whine about it. Trump-the-fighter has always had a patina of fraud about him. He was Mr. Bone Spurs, the ladies-man playboy doing bravado bullying. His complaints about the election have a whiny, sore-loser quality. Trump won't be defeated by his current GOP rivals, who look like they are awaiting table scraps from the master. Only Trump could beat Trump. He is beating himself. Liz Cheney is in position to say she was right all along.
If the law catches up to Trump in 2022 then her tide will be ready in 2024. If not, then in 2028.
[Note: To get this blog daily by email go to: https://petersage.substack.com Subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]
13 comments:
The GOP is now run by working-class nationalists. The GOP has rejected both the globalist Cheney and Bush political dynasties. Trump is not the architect of the GOP movement. It was created by the voters. Trump was smart enough to ride the wave. The movement would continue unimpeded with DeSantis.
Liz Cheney's political career is toast. She doesn't have a national following, and she rode her daddy's coattails just to win her congressional seat. Liz is done politically. She'll be a CNBC talking head next year.
CHENEY 2024....it has a nice ring.
I think for Chaney to be a viable Republican candidate, a full Trump and his followers purge will need to take place. Only 30% voted for her? That says to me the Republican Party has a long way to go before it is restored to some semblance of sanity. Thankful for her service to democracy, she is a true patriot.
Is Nikki Haley still "in the conversation" when it comes to identifying post-Trump Republican leaders and possible contenders for the presidency? Governor Haley, unlike Liz Cheney, isn't stridently anti-Trump, but she didn't really hitch her wagon to President Trump either; she gracefully sidestepped President Trump, resigning from her U.N. position when the going seemed good. Could it be that Nikki Haley is more likely than Liz Cheney to unite the Republican Party when and if the demise of Trump occurs, as you suggest it will, in 2024 or 2028? Whose approach is shrewder, if the goal is to lead a united post-Trump Republican Party? As a practical matter, is Liz Cheney simply paving the way for Nikki Haley or someone like her? Is Nikki Haley suited to outlast Governor DeSantis in the power struggle?
Despite the many ways it can go wrong, there is a valid reason for the populist rage in this country. For decades, the cultural and financial elites have not only been destroying the economic lives of the industrial working class, but heaping scorn on them as well.
While I am not a fan of Donald Trump, I see his appeal to those people. Anyone who wants to replace him as the leader of the Republican Party will also have to appeal to them.
I am Jewish, and I detest George Soros and his initiatives, especially his support of “progressive DAs“ who are letting crime grow out of control in pursuit of what they think of as “social justice.“ Some people apparently dislike George Soros because he is Jewish. But there are many other very valid reasons to dislike him. It’s irresponsible and wrong to chalk all of that up to anti-Semitism.
Liz lives in the world of reality. She sees the inherit danger in following Trump. The Thrumpests hang on his every word. He is their cult leader. Liz is an apostate in the cult’s eyes. She is also the point of the spear that will lead the new conservative movement back from the abyss.
Perfect epigraph! "Et tu, Brute?" Cheney shattered Reagan's 11th Commandment. She's finished in elective office accordingly, even though Trump is as sincere a Republican as he is a born-again Christian.
Today's Democrats don't want "masculine virtues" either. Nor will Cheney disparage America as a fundamental article of faith, or ever accept Iran as putative equal to Israel in rights and status.
In my opinion, the current paradigm is the entrenched cross-partisan statist establishment vs. those equally sick of neocons, neolibs, globalists, unchecked bureaucrats and the military-industrial complex.
"Presumed masculine virtues of strength, courage and integrity."
Wow, so according to male supremacist ideology, males have cornered the market on these three virtues...even integrity.
This comment is so vile that I am not going to waste my time and energy trying to explain why to someone who repeatedly and shamelessly insults the female half of the species, which gives birth to every member of our species. Misogyny is a mental disorder. You certainly have something in common with Traitor Trump. No doubt that it is deeply ingrained in many, but not all, older men.
Since I am not a masochist who enjoys being repeatedly insulted, I will be going elsewhere for political and other miscellaneous content; where women and girls are valued, respected and appreciated.
With very few exceptions, this blog is written for and by privileged white men. Obviously you want to keep it that way.
In order to appeal to what has become the Republican base, a politician must first and foremost pledge allegiance to Trump’s Big Lie (i.e. kiss his Big Butt). There's no place in the GOP for anyone unwilling to live a lie, because that’s what it’s now all about.
Cheney isn’t into groveling before a wannabe dictator or parroting his stupid lies, obviously believing that truth and our Constitution matter. Thus, she no longer represents her constituents and has been excommunicated.
China may save us from our current polarization the way Germany and Japan saved us from The Depression.
Liz Cheney voted for the Trump ticket and earned her a conservative rating I genuinely don't want to see as POTUS. She is a conservative Conservative old-school Republican. When the dust settles she will lead the movement to remake the party or make a new party altogether.
Dear Unknown,
Didn't you notice Thai I said PRESUMED male virtues. It was an overt effort to make clear I was not asserting it. I was presenting it as a contradicted social convention.. Women put the lie to it daily, and. Henry in conspicuous contradiction to men in her party that I said do not have it. Trump is a fake, I wrote, and Republican men are sycophants of a fake.
I don't know how to write more plainly. I did presume, though, when I began writing this blog, that many readers would skim over things, misread me, and get angry over what they thought I said instead of what I said. That has proven to be correct. That experience informs one of the insights I got from writin. Believing is seeing. People see what the expect to see. People read what they expected to read. It partly explains why so many people believe Trump instead of evidence. They make the evidence fit the preconception.
I am, however a White male. You got that right Please don't make me an object of your prejudice.
Peter Sage
“PRESUMED” telegraphed loud and clear.
That was a vile and unwarranted attack. She’s everything she thinks she hates. Definitely has the hate, though.
Post a Comment